However, The Trade Desk declined to offer a specific timeline or plan for its enforcement, even by late August 2023, when many publishers still had not adopted the standards. The current threats to demonetize Yahoo’s allegedly misdeclared inventory indicate a shift toward more stringent enforcement.

The Trade Desk has been flexing its muscle recently as an arbiter of media quality. Earlier this month, the DSP published a list of the top 100 publishers, as part of a pivot toward marketing itself as a purveyor of the premium internet, and not the entirety of the open internet.

The list naturally rankled some publishers, ADWEEK reported. The Trade Desk is also working on a buying product that will let brands buy from a group of more than 500 top publishers, called SP500+.

Of note, Google’s adtech started requiring publishers to classify their inventory by the new IAB Tech Lab standards on April 1, AdExchanger reported. Publishers testing the new guidelines in Google saw double-digits drops in video ad revenue, AdExchanger reported.